I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
If Michigan farms supplied all of the fruits and vegetables that people eat here during the growing season around 4,000 jobs would be created, according to a new study commissioned by the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University.
Patty Cantrell, senior policy analyst at the Michigan Land Use Institute writes that the study shows that strengthening local food systems is a more efficient way to build jobs than the current federal commodity crop subsidy system, which spends millions to support the growing of corn and soybeans but creates few jobs per acre.
Michigan is well positioned to meet more of its own demand for fresh foods, she says, because it is among the most diverse agricultural states and grows a lot of fruits and berries.
Cantrell describes the two scenarios researched by the Leopold Center:
Under the first scenario — a state’s farmers supplying that state’s entire seasonal demand — Michigan could generate new 4,448 farm and retail jobs. That is a big jobs number in any economic analysis, but it’s especially impressive when it’s compared to the number of jobs created by crops that get a lot more government support. In fact, it’s six times more jobs than those that the same amount of land, about 75,000 acres, now generates from highly subsidized corn and soybean production.
Under the second scenario-farms near metropolitan areas supplying that metro’s entire seasonal demand-Michigan could generate 3,262 farm and retail jobs from just 57,000 acres. Those subsidized corn and soybeans, grown on the same amount of land, would generate just 548 jobs.
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